Disclose decisions after Kejriwal quit in 2014, CIC to LG Jung

The Central Information Commission has reportedly ordered the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Najeeb Jung, to disclose all decisions made in the aftermath of Arvind Kejriwal’s resignation as the city chief minister in February 2014.

The CIC, according to NDTV, has disagreed with Jung, who said those decisions were confidential in nature addin that all relevant documents must be made available to the public.

The agency also pointed out that advice on political crises, given to the Governor or President, cannot be treated as confidential.

RTI activist Aditya Jain had approached the LG office asking him to explain the chain of events in the period after Kejriwal’s resignation to his re-election a year later.

Jain had approached the CIC after he failed to get the requested information from the office of the LG.

Kejriwal had quit as Delhi chief minister with just 49 days in office in February 2014. His attempts at Lok Sabha elections had resulted in utter failure with his new party winning just four seats.

He then resorted to door-to-door campaign asking for forgiveness from the people of Delhi. A year later, he won a historic landslide by winning 67 out of 70 seats.

However, a lot of bickering took place between Kejriwal and Jung after the former resigned as chief minister. He was in favour of new elections, but the LG disagreed with him giving rise to suspicions that he was acting at the behest of the central government, which the office of LG reports to.

This decision will have bearing to other key decisions related to imposing President’s Rule in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Fearing this, the Centre had recently said that the reports submitted to President Pranab Mukherjee, asking for the elected governments of Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh to be dismissed, must be treated confidentially.